pièce de résistance, "imagine-toi, when I was' in England I went into a little shop and asked the man for champi- gnons, and he didn't know what they were." "Perhaps," I offered feebly, "if you had asked for mushrooms, he would have understood." "Mushrooms," she d . h d . " Q , repeate WIt Istaste. u est-ce que c' est 'mushrooms?' I wanted champi- gnons. Surely, even an Englishman should know what champignons are!" This irritation with a people she re- fuses to understand flares up when it is least expected. At present, her son, Pierre, is sharing a billet with English officers near the Maginot Line and that, she feels, is as it should be during a war. She has even asked him, she writes me, to bring his British friends home with him if their leave coincides with his. But what she cannot swallow is Suzanne's getting into uniform. Suzanne is Pierre's wife. I have never met her, their mar- riage having occurred since my last visit to France, but from letters and photo- graphs sent at the time of the event I should say that Aunt Lucienne did not exaggerate when she described her d h . 1 "' Il h . " aug ter-In- aw as gentz e et c zc. But in this crise, Suzanne, according tc! Aunt Lucienne, is being neither gen- title nor chic. She wants to wear a cap, brass buttons, and a military belt, and that, says Aunt Lucienne, is une idée purely English au fond, which is tanta- mount to saying it is rooted in madness. " C ,. bl " h . ". h est zncroya e, s e wrItes, WIt what passion Englishwomen rush into uniforms at the slightest provocation." For Frenchwomen to imitate them she calls a defeatist act which will destroy the moral strength of the men of France. It seems complicated, but Aunt Lucienne makes it simple. "Can you imagine," she writes, and I can see her raising her eyebrows in a fine fury of indignation, "a man in the midst of battle clinging to a vision of his wife or bien-aimée garbed in cap, brass buttons, and belt? And now our Suzanne thinks it is chic, and when Pierre comes home on leave he will be greeted by a sexless creature who will remind him of what he wishes to forget. War .is ugly enough without introducing unnecessary com- plications. I can tell you, the women who follow the armies-let us be real- istic-do not wear uniforms." If one were to believe my Aunt Lu- cienne, victory in a war is assured a nation to the extent that its men become more ma"culine and its women more feminine. She has no argument to sup- port this theory; she simply states it and believes it. It is possible she has some- thing there. I'll say this for her: she 71 New Problems · I nve st m ent In The problem of proper investment, never a simple tW f h one, is urt er complicated by the uncertainty of world markets in these difficult days. ([ If you are concerned over what currently may be sound invest- ment policy as distinguished from speculation, we should like to tell you how our Custodian Manage- ment Service endeavors to deal with this problem. ([ The Custodian Management Service of City Bank Farmers Trust Company is directed by senior officers o who have available research information com p iled b y a large and experienced staff. They may be of great help and benefit to you. i City Bank Farmers i rrz to zp CHARTERED 1822 1 TitS om anI f J tW Head Office: 22 William Street, New York; Uptown Office: Madison Avenue at 42nd Street; Brooklyn Office: 181 Montague Street Information may also be obtained through any branch of The National City Bank of New York